The first public picture of my Cat Army, in its entirety. Pictured from left: Abra, Mooshy, Electra and Oedipus.
That’s how we roll in Jersey. Four cats deep. By the way, these furry soldiers occupy a mere one-half of the bed. Were this only true of the their litter box habits.
Nothing succeeds like a rerun. Nowhere is that truer than in Hollywood, which loves its sequels. Some might argue the industry loves sequels a bit too much; there seems to be a real shortage of new ideas circulating through those old familiar hallways lately.
But at last MGM announced an interesting remake concept. After three different studios passed, her come The Three Stooges. Starring Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and Benico Del Toro and helmed by the Farrelly Brothers, this mixture of comedic players and raw talent just might work. I’ll be there . . .
Heading into the weekend, a few classic pearls of Stooge wisdom:
“Why don’t I come up and see ya sometime when you’re in the nude… I mean mood.”
“We graduated with the highest temperatures in our class.”
“I baked a cake once, but it fell and killed the cat.”
“How’re we gonna shoot golf without guns?”
The first rule of fight club: touch grandpa’s cane is risking serious bodily injury. Not because the old man might fall to the sidewalk, a helpless mess. No, reaching for the cane is dangerous because that genteel looking bloke might use it to break your kneecaps.
That’s right. Grandpa might be a student of Cane-Fu–the art of defending ones self with a walking cane. Only these are more than just walking canes. Made of harder woods, with a wider crooks for hooking . . . um, crooks, these specialty fighting sticks are sturdy enough to topple an attacker.
If you have the right training.
Updated 7/22/2009 – in response to a comment from Ted, here is a link to the official source on Cane-Fu.
After a hard day at work, I like a nice, furry bunny taco.
Original photo gallery available at: chron.com.
Been absent through much of March so far–really much of 2009–from the site. At the risk of going too deep with the details, I’ll be brief. Essentially, there was an intersection of twin culprits: one professional, one act of God.
Least important crisis first. The act of God. Basically, the point came where I could no longer trust the hard drive on my primary PC. Normally that would work out to about one day of down time to get everything humming again.
But these are not normal times. And the computer formerly known as Electra is no normal computer.
By any definition Electra is an ancient machine. Like seven in people years, which translate to about nineteen in terms of technology. When Electra was “born” in 2002, nearly all of the components, minus the hard drive, were cast off parts from other machines in a buddy’s basement. This means the machine is really much older.
Some have called the machine ghetto because of its ragged exterior ( which includes masking tape and exposed metal edges ) but to me what always mattered most was consistency. When the power button was pressed, the machine worked.
Until it didn’t.
Anyway, after a full reload on a new hard drive, all is lovely again. In some ways I’m happier with the box than years previous because it’s such an economical and–dare I say–elegant arrangement. The only software on the machine are tools necessary for writing and periodic maintenance. Absolute opposite of clutter. Plus the price was right. Forty-nine bucks for a new drive and some labor. The difficulty came when searching for a single block of time.
The more pertinent cause for the spotty updates stems from an intense period of professional reflection. Between the time I started pitching The Last Track and now, the marketplace changed drastically. Publishing moves in cycles like most other business, ebbing and flowing with the tides of the global economy. What is considered an acceptable risk these days has changed a great deal. Witness the recent string of celebrity book deals and memoirs.
Also the technology changed, too. Just two years ago, Kindle was a press release for a yet-to-be-released product. Now there’s more than 500,000 readers and 230,000 titles available. Fujitsu launched an e-reader product, as did Sony. Lots more will follow.
These two game changing landscapes–and other realities–have prompted a reconsideration of one of my most tightly held beliefs about writing and publishing.
While I was plotting a new course, I thought it was best to keep quiet until I had the pieces lined up on a map of continents that seemed to shift daily. This pause gave me the space I needed to really consider if I wanted to be daring, or just write about being daring.
Because what’s going down in June is a good thing, and big departure. As that month draws closer, I’ll be more specific.
Monday night The Poet co-chairs a panel along with the author of a new book about life with Hemingway during his days in Cuba. Based on the experiences of Hemingway’s assistant, the memoir provides new insight into Ernest Hemingway’s work and life.
Besides being a professional honor, the presentation also a personal matter for The Poet. In Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway recreated a an actual conversation with his assistant about the most famous dynasty in the history of the game.
“In the other league between Brooklyn and Philadelphia I must take Brooklyn. But then I think of Dick Sisler and those great drives in the old park.”
“There was nothing ever like them. He hits the longest ball I ever seen.”
– Ernest Hemingway, Old Man and the Sea
Dick, George and Dave Sisler, all Hall of Fame players, are relatives of The Poet.
Tonight though, we dine and drink with the author of the forthcoming memoir. And I get to meet the author and Hemingway’s majordomo. Gotta brush up on my Spanish.
The Poet bought Electra and Oedipus a sock monkey for the holidays. Electra is particularly taken with her new friend. And the couch.
Viewers of evening news broadcasts have had it with the avalanche of bad ides lately, and they’ve spoken. When anchor Brian Williams challenged the audience to suggest good news to report recently, emails flooded the network’s servers.
“We have more stories than we could humanly cover if we combined all three network newscasts. It’s hit an unbelievable nerve,” said Williams.
I applaud the viewers initiative. And kudos for their patience, because I walked away years ago.
Fifteen years ago, I stopped watching the news. Not because I cared less about the world. I stopped watching because it was clear the stations recycled the same report every night.
A fire. A shooting. An intolerable act of cruelty. An inaccurate weather forecast. A thirty-second human interest story that rarely counterbalanced the evilness that was mankind. Day after day, it was the same thing. Only the names of the newscasters changed.
So for my own mental health, I quit the nightly news. The Internet, health magazines, and financial newspapers ( from page three on ) took up the slack. And I paid more attention my friends, family and coworkers. Even strangers. Wherever I went, I seemed to notice more about human interaction. Because of this shift of focus, some profound changes happened.
I witnessed intrinsic good of people–gestures of kindness that people did for each other, without thought of reward or recognition. Over time the frequency of these acts seemed to increase. Now I notice them constantly.
After years of observation, I feel the ratio of decent humans to douchebags is roughly 10 to 1. For every Bernie Madoff, far more people who run their lives without resorting to tom-fuckery and shell-games.
So if 90 percent of people are basically good, maybe it’s time the news could reflect that.
And then I’ll start watching it again.
